Epilogue
TWO AND A HALF MONTHS LATER
YURI
It’s weird living somewhere without any noticeable markers of season change.
It’s only a few days before Halloween but everything is still green and the sun is still shining.
The heat has backed off a few degrees from the height of summer, but other than that, it could be May just as easily as late October.
The biggest difference is that the tourists are gone and the island is all ours again. Ours. It really does feel like mine as much as anyone else’s now, like I belong here somehow, even though I could have sworn I ended up here by chance.
“Damn, I forgot how far this walk was when I agreed to carry the cooler,” Easy says from somewhere behind me.
“Well, give it to me, then,” Lux says.
“I’m fine; we’re almost there.” I hear a grunt and a little scuffle, then a huff from Easy, so I’m guessing Lux got his way. I chuckle and heave the bag of snacks I volunteered to carry a little higher on my shoulder.
Ahead of me, Cooper starts to whistle as we all make our way up the trail.
“Is that ‘Monster Mash’?” Ten calls out.
“Trying to get us all in the spirit,” Cooper says, then returns to whistling.
By the time we reach the clearing, the sun is setting and the sky is turning the muted pink of dusk.
The wildflowers that were blooming here when we came over the summer are all shriveled and gone now, leaving a wide-open field of tall grass in their place.
That’s not the only difference from the last time we were here either.
Raven really went all out covering the carousel and half the trees in orange and purple fairy lights.
There are folding tables for us to put all the snacks out on and different activities set up, like tubs with apples floating in them, just waiting for someone to become the bobbing champion, and another table with a Ouija board and several chairs around it.
“Wow.” Boston lets out a low, impressed whistle.
Raven steps into the clearing right behind him and gapes at it like he’s never seen it before.
“What the… I didn’t do this.”
“That’s spooky,” Cooper mutters.
Raven shakes his head. “I mean, I set up the tables and the activities, but I didn’t do all these lights.
” He looks confused for another few seconds, then he whips his head around and looks over at Devil and Angel, who are dressed accordingly in matching costumes that are probably a bit more revealing than their ethereal counterparts would actually wear.
They both grin at him unapologetically, and he blushes and quickly looks away from them.
“What’s all that about?” I ask Cooper quietly.
“What?” He pulls the joint out from behind his ear and sparks it up, seemingly oblivious to the daytime TV level subtext of the looks that were just going on over there.
“Never mind,” I say with a laugh. “Help me set up the snacks I carried up?” I nudge him towards the table and we unpack the containers from my bag.
I glance at the carousel out of the corner of my eye a few times while we make the snack table look nice.
I almost want to stick my tongue out at the stupid thing and say “you were wrong, we worked it out” but it might be a little embarrassing to start beefing with an inanimate object, so I restrain myself and check out everyone’s costumes instead.
Cooper and I planned to dress up as Lestat and Louie from Interview with the Vampire, except we got our wires crossed and both dressed up as Lestat.
I have to say, with his long hair, he’s pulling it off better than I am, but I went harder with expensive glue-in vampire teeth (which are already driving me crazy and are definitely going to have to come out soon) and fake blood on my chin.
Ten and Bambi both dressed as slutty male nurses, and Raven has an incredible raven costume with big black wings.
Goose, Pete, Hennessey, and Storm are dressed up as four of the five Spice Girls, which might be my favorite of all the costumes here, especially because they made Storm dress as Baby Spice and the blond pigtail wig is really working with his scowl.
Easy and Lux are in one of those two-part costumes where Lux is the head of a horse and Easy is the ass.
And, finally, Boston and Trick are dressed as Mario and Luigi.
“You guys know Mario and Luigi are brothers, right?” I ask.
“Told you,” Boston says smugly.
“Well, I didn’t want to wear Peach’s puffy dress all the way up here. It would have gotten snagged in all the bushes along the way,” Trick says.
“I told him he should be Bowser. A big monster head and a spiky shell on his back would only be an improvement.” Boston smirks.
“Please, everyone knows I’m the good looking one of the two of us.” Trick argues back, and the two of them fall into a playful bickering match that ends with them kissing.
“Everyone here is so weird,” I say with a smile, taking the joint Cooper offers me.
“It’s the best, right?” he says, and I nod in agreement as I inhale a lungful of sweet, blueberry flavored smoke, enjoying the way it goes right to my head and gives me a delightful buzz.
“I want to try the carousel again.”
“Why? It’s broken,” Cooper says.
I glare at the thing. He’s right, an electrical problem is the logical answer and I’m nothing if not logical. But it’s bothering me anyway.
“Everyone else says it works though?” I ask. “Ten, Bambi, have you been on the carousel?”
“Yeah,” Ten says.
“A couple of times. They say it only works if you’re soulmates though.” Bambi waggles his eyebrows and looks between Cooper and me. “Are you nervous to try it?”
“No,” I lie.
“It doesn’t work,” Cooper says again through a mouthful of a brownie.
“Wait, you guys tried it and it didn’t work?” Raven frowns. “Both of you were on it at the same time?”
“It obviously has an electrical problem,” I say instead of answering Raven’s question.
“Nope, redid all the wiring myself,” Goose says. “I’ll show you. Come on.” He grabs Pete’s hand and hauls him over to the carousel.
Pete hops up on the nearest horse and Goose hits the button, then wraps his arms around Pete and pulls him in for a kiss.
The lights all flicker on, glowing in the darkness of the field, much brighter than any of the fairy lights Devil and Angel set up.
The eerie, old-time music starts to play too, and the carousel shudders to life.
They let it go for two rotations before they stop kissing and Goose hits the button to stop it again.
“Maybe it’s fixed?” Just because it didn’t work before and now it does, that doesn’t prove much.
“It’s special,” Raven insists. “Watch.” He loops his arm through mine and pulls me up onto the platform of the carousel.
He presses the button and then just stares at me with a pointed look when it doesn’t move. It doesn’t light up, there’s no music, nothing. It just sits silently like you would expect an old, broken carousel in the middle of a field to do.
“See?” he says.
“That still doesn’t prove…” I shake my head.
“You’ve gotta try one of these brownies, Yur.” Cooper steps up onto the platform and offers me half a brownie.
With a knowing smirk, Raven steps off, and the second he does, the carousel comes to life again.
Not just a flicker of lights and a brief burst of music like the last time we were here, but fully functioning.
The horse I’m leaning against rises towards the ceiling a few inches and I stumble.
Cooper catches me and I smile at him, my heart thundering with disbelief and maybe just a little bit of relief.
Even if I don’t believe that soulmates or love can power a carousel or any other carnival ride, there’s something that even I have to admit feels magical about the whole thing.
“I love you, Coop,” I murmur, looping my arms around his neck and leaning into him.
“I love you. Always. Forever.” He presses a soft kiss to my lips, and we ride the carousel for a few rotations before we finally turn it off and hop down.
We have some more snacks and drinks, then Cooper sparks up another joint and we find a nice patch of grass to sit on together.
Laughter echoes through the air, along with the carousel music going on and off as different couples take a ride.
“You think there could be something to it?” Cooper asks, nodding towards the carousel where Easy and Lux are enjoying a ride now.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I’m not sure I believe in soulmates. I believe in love and I believe in working at it and trying to be better together and doing everything you can not to fuck it up.”
Cooper laughs. “Yeah, I’m definitely on board with that. Maybe soulmates are made, you know? Like, you pick a person and you pour your whole heart and soul into them, and that makes it something special.”
I smile again. I like that. And I think maybe if the whole silly thing is real, that the carousel didn’t work for us the first time because we were out of sync; our souls or whatever it is inside us that connects to other people weren’t aligned yet.
They are now though. Or we are now. We’re willing to talk about the hard things and make compromises and build a life together now.
We’re committed to forever with each other.
“This is nice.” Cooper sighs happily, leaning against me as we watch Bambi shove his face into a tub of water and try to bite an apple while Boston and Trick use the Ouija board to attempt to contact the spirit of Freddy Mercury.
There’s a speaker set up nearby too, with a Halloween playlist on, and Bird and Scout are drunkenly dancing to “Highway to Hell.”
“It is.” I kiss his cheek and settle against him to enjoy the beautiful chaos all around us.
THE END